October Dietbet

Back in July I posted that I had joined Sarah Fit’s Dietbet. Everyone who wanted to “play” put in $15 and was challenged to lose 4% of their weight. For me, that was 6.2 pounds.


I didn’t take the bet very seriously for the first few weeks. I was convinced that if I “ate healthy” that the weight would just come off. The thing is, I didn’t really define what eating healthy meant. It was more of a feeling than an action. So, I kept losing then regaining the same the pounds. It was incredibly frustrating. However, in the end I won my bet!

At first I wasn't sure why I kept regaining. The first few weeks I was “being healthy,” but I wasn’t tracking my calories consistently or making sure that I exercised regularly. Finally, with a week left, I got serious. I tracked what I ate by writing everything down and I went to the gym three times. Because I only had a week left, and at that point I needed to lose about 5 pounds, I ate 1,200 calories a day. In the end, I lost 6.5 pounds from my starting weight in 28 days (6 pounds in the last 8 days). Here were my techniques:

1. I cut out “healthy” treats. Healthy is in quotation marks, because some indulgences I had convinced myself were healthy really weren’t. The first three weeks it seemed like every time I went over 1,200 calories I would gain or at least not lose. I think the problem was my addiction to Frozen Yogurt. I was going to self-serve FroYo places several times a week. I thought I knew how much I was eating because they weigh the yogurt in order to determine the price and I would use the weight to calculate the calories. I honestly think the calorie counts on their website are off (so, on days when I thought I was eating 1,500 calories, instead I may have been eating many more). So, I cut that out completely. Instead I ate truly healthy treats – fruit, nature’s dessert. :)
2. I increased my water intake. Part of this was replacing liquid calories with water. I had gotten into the habit of drinking smoothies and lattes almost daily. While fruit and yogurt smoothies and soy lattes are certainly not “bad” for you, they are not the best choice for someone who is trying to lose weight. My go-to smoothies contained 500 calories per serving, and my soy lattes contained 220 calories. By drinking water instead of these, I was able to cut out/re-distribute these calories. I also just drank more water in general. Throughout my day at work I would sip on water. On the weekends with friends, I had a glass of water with me at all times. This helped make me less hungry, and, I think, have fewer cravings.
3. I worked out three times a week. I’ve always thought of myself as a person who exercises… but ever since I graduated from college and going to the gym is less convenient, I’ve become someone who used to exercise. Throughout the entire Diet Bet, I made it a priority to workout multiple times a week. First, I was burning more calories. But, more importantly I felt healthier when I went to the gym, which made me want to continue to make healthy choices. It’s a positive feedback loop. Also, going to the gym meant I had less time to spend eating… which was important, because I tend to snack when I’m lounging about. Most of the time I spent 45 minutes on the elliptical, but I also jogged some, took long walks at a quick pace, and did workout videos.

Diet Bet definitely helped me reach my goals. In the past when my weight bounced around but ultimately remained the same, I kind of just gave up. Because there was a solid end date for the bet, I really pushed myself to make sure I hit my target. I like how the goals they set were very reasonable. Everyone was challenged to lose 4% of his or her body weight in 28 days. That means that someone who weighed less had to lose less than someone who weighed more, which makes sense because the less you have to lose, the harder it is to do so. I also like how I was reminded of my goal each day in an email.

Sarah Fit will be hosting another Dietbet which will start on October 10th. I'll be playing in this game, if you’d like to do this with me! The buy-in for this game is $25.

~ Susan

Wanna Make a Bet?

I bet that I can lose 4% of my body weight in four weeks. What about you?

I signed up to participate in a weight loss challenge through DietBet. The challenge is what I said above - to lose 4% or more of your body weight in four weeks. I've been thinking about what I eat for the a couple of months now, and I recently started Slim in 6. 4% of my body weight is only about 5 pounds, which I'm usually like - oh yeah, no problem, I can lose that. The thing is, over the past few years it's become more and more difficult to shed the extra weight I gain when I get lazy about diet and fitness. So, I figure this is a way to have a firm goal in mind that reasonably attainable and to get some outside support.

It costs $15 to join in. To verify that you've actually lost the weight you say you have, you have to take pictures of yourself on a scale at the beginning and end of the challenge. You take one of your weight (and I guess your feet), and another full body shot of yourself standing on the scale.

If you lose your goal amount, you get your money back. If you don't, it goes into a pot to be distributed among the winners.

Now, I'll admit that this sounds like something that could easily be misused by people who have an unhealthy obsession with weight loss. To prevent this, there are rules about how much you can lose (if you lose too much you get disqualified, for your own good).

I joined in on SarahFit's bet. I enjoy her blog and her YouTube videos. She'll be posting workouts and recipes on her challenge page, on DietBet's website. If you'd like to join click here.

~ Susan

Slim in 6

I just started a new workout program - Slim in 6. Slim in 6 is a program by Beachbody that promises to reshape your body in 6 weeks. The foundation of the program is a set of 3 DVDs - you use one at a time, progressing to the next in the set every two weeks. (You use Start It Up! for the first two weeks, Ramp It Up! for the next two weeks, and Burn It Up! for the final two weeks.)

According to the promo material, this program can help you fit into a dress for an upcoming event or lose the weight that you've gained over the years in 6 weeks. The workout is made up of fat-burning cardio moves and some light resistance moves. The moves target your abs, hips, thighs, and butt.

I likes these workouts because they're very straight-forward and not too dancy. There's also no jumping, which I like because sometimes I worry about how my downstairs neighbor acts.

I've had time to go through all of the workouts on the first DVD:

• Start It Up! - this is the main workout on the DVD, it features squats, lunges, arm exercises with a band, ab mat work, and 16 count aerobic moves
• Slim & 6-Pack - a 15 minute ab workout
• Slim & Limber - this is a 15 minute stretch routine
• 2 Bonus Workouts
• Thin Thighs Guaranteed - Debbie Siebers leads the exercies, but she looks and sounds very different than she does in the other videos, so this is either older or newer. Each move is 45 seconds, but so hard!
• Cardio Core Express - this workout is from the Slim Series, a different Beachbody workout program. This workout is under 30 minutes and there's no floor work. It uses several of the same moves in Start It Up! but it's more upbeat.

All of the workouts have a countdown bar at the bottom that tracks how much of the workout has gone by. The bar either tracks - how much of the total workout is left, how much of the current exercise is left, or both.
 
Hope you liked my initial review of Slim-in-6! I'll check in every two weeks, at the end of each DVD, to let you know how it went. :)

~ Susan